A blog about media and technology. Sorry, no cat GIFs.

Drones are everywhere in the news, but they have nothing to do with gathering the news. Not yet, anyway. That could change if the Federal Aviation Administration changes the rules to allow commercial use.

That hasn’t stopped journalists talking about the reporting possibilities of remote-controlled aircraft. On Monday, while at a conference on the news industry, I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on drone technology, the not-yet-legal tool that could improve the way we gather news.

You can read my Twitter recap below. What do you think of the promise and perils of drone reporting? Discuss in the comments, email me or talk about it on Twitter at @AdamRichterRE.

Of course, no drone discussion is valid without video. So here you go:

For the latest installment in our Latino Lunch series, Anthony Orozco and I went to Mezcal’s, a Mexican restaurant on North Sixth Street that’s been around for a while. I think it’s one of the most well-known Latino restaurants in Reading, along with Sofrito and Mi Casa Su Casa. Mezcal’s has been in business since 2009.

Anthony: Mezcal’s has all the usual marking of a solid Mexican restaurant: A life-size cutout of a faux Pancho Villa, murals of men with large sombreros and bandoliers, art of Aztec warriors carrying a dead virgin, banda music playing and signs promoting deals on tequila and margaritas.

(Adam: Somehow I didn’t get any photos of the interior, so check out Anthony’s write-up at his blog.)

Adam: The décor definitely makes this place stand out. Call me shallow, but I like when a restaurant pays attention to these kinds of details. As for the tequila, I’ve never been a fan so I can’t comment. I wish I had checked out their beer list. When I was in Mexico seven years ago I became a big fan of Mexican beer. Alas, all I had at lunch was water.

Anthony: As is our custom, we ordered some appetizers to start our meal.
Adam ordered some motecinos: soft corn tortillas stuffed with melted chease, spinach and mushrooms, topped with tomatillo sauce.
These were delightful. The mexican queso blanco and vegitables made it rich and really flavorful.
We also ordered a pair of tacos, one beef and one chicken.

Motecinos. Highly recommended.

Adam: I am a huge fan of motecinos. They contain everything you need for a tasty dish: spinach, mushrooms and cheese. These were delicious. The tacos, on the other hand, were just OK. The beef had more flavor than the chicken, which tasted a little dry. It had been seasoned with chipotle but this made it more smoky than spicy.
Truth be told, nothing we had set my mouth on fire. I suppose that’s a good thing?

It’s not a real meal until you photograph it.

Anthony: I’m gonna go ahead and through the service under the bus a little here and say they totally forgot our tacos. But to be fair, so did we. We didn’t get them until the end of the meal and when they came, they were in hard shells. And call me a zealot, but hard taco shells have no place on my lunch table. Sure, almost all mexican restaurants have hard shells. These are for kids or hardline gringos who think Taco Bell counts as Mexican food.
But don’t let this little rant mislead you, the entrees were dynamite.
I ordered carne a la Tampiqueña: grilled sirloin steak topped with fried onion, chile poblano and red sauce. It also, of course, came with rice and beans.
The meal was surprisingly good. The steak sirloin was tender, the onions and peppers that topped it were great and I am a sucker for rice and beans in general.

Adam: If anyone thinks Taco Bell counts as Mexican food, that just breaks my heart.But yes, the entrees (and that appetizer) were much better than the tacos. I had the Valentina, a chicken breast in a garlic cream sauce topped with mushrooms, olives and poblano peppers. It was flavorful but not heavy, despite the cream sauce. And the chicken breast was so thin I could have slipped it inside my iPhone case. I didn’t, of course. But I could have.
I really like that the prices were reasonable but the food wasn’t an overwhelming amount. When we went to Taqueria El Carreton, I think I had another three meals just from the one dish of leftovers. But at Mezcal’s, I finished the appetizer, the entrée and half the tacos without feeling saturated. On top of that, it was inexpensive. Not Taco Bell inexpensive, but again we were eating real Mexican food.

Anthony: I was really pleased with the price. Usually when you go to a run of the mill Mexican restaurant you see fajitas and entrees come in at $12, $13 or $14. But this place was really down to earth and prices hovered around $8.
I think that the service could have been a lot tighter, but there is always the chance that we happened to catch them at an odd hour. I would most definitely eat at Mezcal again.

This week’s list of social media fails includes shopping malls, dumb criminials and, as always, Internet Trolls. But the social media winner negates all of that. Read on:

1) Mall of America: The Minnesota mall, like Starbucks, McDonald’s and many others before it, learned the hard way that when you start a hashtag-based social media campaign, you lose control. The mall launched #ItsMyMall on Monday as a way to get shoppers to share their stories and win prizes. But protesters who had been charged in a December demonstration at the mall took over the hashtag, using it to post photos of police clad in riot gear at the Dec. 20 protest.

2) BreadTalk Bakery: The Singapore-based bakery chain faced a backlash on social media after it tried to commemorate the death of Lee Kuan Yew, the country’s founder who died this week at age 91. The Bakery commemorated Yew’s death with a — bun. The company received a torrent of critical comments on its Facebook page. To BreadTalk’s credit, it apologized on Facebook and announced it would donate its projected sales revenue — about $30,000 — to charity.

3) Teens who use their smartphones while driving: Really anyone who tries to do anything online when they should keep their attention on the road, but a new study this week shows that distracted driving, including cellphone use, accounts for a higher percentage of accidents involving teens than previously thought.

Hang up and drive, kids (and adults). Keep your eyes on the road, not the screen.

4) Christopher Wallace: If you think you’re a social media addict, chances are Christopher Wallace has you beat. Police in Fairfield, Maine, had been searching for Wallace because he was wanted in connection with a burglary in January. He eluded arrest for weeks, until he finally revealed his whereabouts on Snapchat. The post that was his undoing was a Snapchat saying police were in his home and he was hiding in a cabinet. That’s where they found him.

5) More Internet trolls: Awful people saying awful things on social media are nothing new. But for some strange reason the target of trolls is New York Islanders defenseman Nick Leddy. Leddy, who recently signed a contract extension, received multiple violent threats on Twitter that are so serious the FBI is investigating. I am not a hockey fan so I don’t know why Leddy has incurred their wrath, but I suspect even if I followed the sport I wouldn’t understand it.

This week’s winner is, of course, someone who shows more savvy and wisdom about social media than people twice her age:

Mo’ne Davis: The 13-year-old star Little League pitcher responded to ugliness with poise and maturity. She forgave the Bloomsburg University player who posted an ugly tweet about her last week, calling Davis a name that no girl or woman deserves to be called. He was kicked off the team. Davis wrote a letter to university officials asking for his reinstatement, and during an interview with ESPN said this:

“Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone deserves a second chance. I know he didn’t mean it in that type of way. I know people get tired of seeing me on TV. But sometimes you got to think about what you’re doing before you do it.”

If not for #NationalPuppyDay, I would have forgotten about the asteroid that almost killed us all.

This morning I saw multiple posts (and created a few myself) celebrating the holiday that probably didn’t exist before the advent of hashtags. In search of the story behind it, I learned that today is also National Near Miss Day, marking the day in 1989 when an asteroid came within a half-million miles of striking the earth.

If social media has taught us anything, it’s that every single part of life is special and deserving of its own day. If you think Hallmark was eggregious at making up holidays, consider this list of “National” fill-in-the-blank days from the site NationalDayCalendar.com:

March 23:

National Chip and Dip Day

National Near Miss Day

National Melba Toast Day

National Puppy Day – Typically celebrated on March 23rd, however observed on a Friday or Monday when falling on a weekend

March 24:

National Chocolate Covered Raisin Day

National BraveHearts Day

National American Diabetes Association Alert Day – Fourth Tuesday of March

March 25:

National Lobster Newburg Day

National Medal of Honor Day

National Tolkein Reading Day

Manatee Appreciation Day – Last Wednesday of March

March 26:

National Spinach Day

National Nougat Day

March 27:

National Joe Day

National Spanish Paella Day

March 28:

National Weed Appreciation Day

National Something on a Stick Day

National Black Forest Cake Day

March 29:

National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day

National Chiffon Cake Day

Please note that I haven’t even gotten into April. The above are just the “National” days set aside for the rest of this week.

And of course, don’t forget World Poetry Day, which we celebrated Saturday:

I’m not opposed to celebrating when appropriate, but I imagine most of these holidays exist just to create trending hashtags and shares on social media. Why else would there be a National Puppy Day?

Again: I’m not opposed. Who can resist the viral appeal of cute puppy photos?

It’s trivial and a borderline time-waster. But all these “national” days can prompt us to communicate more on social media — and thus be more social — and have a light moment of amusement before carrying on with the rest of our day.

I’m looking forward to April 4, National Hug A Newsman Day. It falls on a Saturday, but remember that many of us have to work weekends. We could really use it then.

Be warned: I’m DEFINITELY sharing something on National Tolkein Reading Day. I have two days to find the perfect passage.

Christopher Andrew Lee: The Wharton, Texas, man was arrested March 16 after he posted photos of the keys to an SUV he allegedly stole on Facebook. Police were able to track him down because he also tagged his location. Lee is now in jail in lieu of $60,000 bail. I’ll give him this much: He makes work easier for the police. For that we should thank criminals who are active on Facebook.

Starbucks: The Mother Ship of coffee chains tried to solve racism this week by promoting #RaceTogether, a hashtag intended not only for Twitter, but also for the cups of customers who might not want anything more profound than a grande mocha from their barista. The Chicago Tribune’s Scott Kleinberg has a terrific breakdown of how this social media campaign failed and why. The company did an injustice to its namesake this week. Starbuck the character was the voice of reason in “Moby Dick,” the one person who tried to talk Captain Ahab out of pursuing the white whale. Starbucks could have used a Starbuck before launching #RaceTogether.

An unnamed British racist teen: Police arrested a 15-year-old boy for a racist tweet aimed at a player for the English soccer club Arsenal. He was upset that Danny Welbeck scored the winning goal against Manchester United. Police in Wiltshire arrested the boy on suspicion of racial abuse. It’s not a jail offense in the United States, but it’s nice to know that trolls everywhere — or at least alleged trolls — can get their comeuppance.

Ashley Judd. The actress who was attacked on Twitter is fighting back. Judd said this week she’s pressing charges against the trolls. Whether it does any good, we’ll see. She might have better luck exposing those nitwits for who they really are, as Curt Schilling did when his daughter was attacked on social media. Anytime someone is willing to take on horrible trolls it’s a promising sign that there are decent people on the Internet.

I’ll get to the bad news in a post later this week. Today I want to focus on what The Media Insight Project’s report says about millennials’ online habits and where their news consumption fits into the picture.

First, what do they do when they go online? Mostly they use email, keep up with their friends, stream music, TV or movies and research topics or pursue hobbies. News consumption ranks fifth (and sixth, if you count checking the weather and traffic as following the news).

Fifth place may sound like a low ranking, but the percentage of millennials who keep up with the news is still 64 percent. Of these, nearly 70 percent do so at least once a day. As far as frequent online activities go, news ranks third, ahead of playing games.

Take THAT, Candy Crush Saga!

More important than the how many is the why.I find the reasons that millennials follow the news to be encouraging, though they might not sound surprising to regular consumers of news:

To stay informed and be a better citizen

Because they find it enjoyable or entertaining.

To talk to friends and family about the news.

To decide where they stand on things.

The first three reasons were echoed by more than half of all respondents. Item four was just below 50 percent. I still find it an encouraging response. It means that those millennials are willing to look at issues rationally. They seek out the information and make their judgments based on that.

Considering we have a whole cottage industry of media outlets dedicated to the exact opposite — to telling narratives that fit a fixed mindset — this gives me hope about the future of news.

What is less surprising is that news consumption is based partly on age within the millennial demographic. Only a third of those under 25, the report says, actively seek out news to read. About half of those over 30 do so, according to the report. This isn’t much of surprise. Priorities are different when you’re 23 and when you’re 33. It follows that news habits would be different, too.

I wonder how willingness to pay for news changes on either side of that generational divide, too. Even the millennials that are pushing 35 were in their late teens and early 20s when Napster was big and taught us that everything on the Internet should be free.

“The problem with today’s youth is …” has been the start of many a rant by an older person ever since young people began disappointing their elders. It’s natural people in every generation to assume that THEY had it right while the callow youth are ruining everything.

But when it comes to news consumption, you can say the kids are, mostly, alright.

A new report from the Media Insight Project released today looks at the news habits of millennials — Americans between 18 and 34 who are considered the first “digital generation.” These are the people who grew up during the decline of print, the rise of partisan cable news and the emergence of the Internet as the dominant communication form.

I will look at different aspects of the report through blog posts this week. Let me start today by looking at some key stats that debunk the myth that young people don’t pay attention to the news.

First some figures. According to the study, “How Millennials Get News: Inside the Habits of America’s First Digital Generation”:

69 percent of millennials get news at least once a day (p. 3).

When they dig deeper on a subject, most use search (57 percent), while 23 percent use news sites (yay!)* (p. 3).* My editorial comment; not part of the study

What matters to millennials when they find out more about a subject “are that they know the source well (57 percent) and that the source is transparent and rich with references and links (52 percent).”

This is encouraging news for those who report the news. Although print readers tend to be older, a market exists for younger news consumers. More importantly, they want to do more than just skim the headlines. News sites can be valuable resources for an online audience hungry to get more depth out of the news.

What’s the downside? This stat:

Fewer than 20 percent pay for digital news subscriptions.

Ouch.

Tomorrow I’ll look into what the report says about how millennials consume their news, and what motivates them. But I encourage you to read the report, which is linked above, for yourself.

This has been a bad week to be a mayor, a judge or a terrorist group. Check out this week’s social media fails — and find out who won social media at the bottom of this post.

Peoria’s mayor: Parody Twitter accounts are touchy. Done well, they’re funny (see the Sarcastic Mars Rover Twitter feed). Every other time, they’re train wrecks that only enrage, never enlighten. But rarely do they bring about a police raid.

As someone who’s been involved with Twitter parody accounts before, I can sympathize with Mayor Jim Ardis. But he should have known he had recourse against Daniel that didn’t involve a raid.

ISIS: You may remember that the hacker collective Anonymous declared war on ISIS a while back. Now an attempt to create a Facebook-style social network for the terrorist group’s supporters have been sabotaged. Britain’s Independent newspaper reports that Khelafabook was set up as a way for ISIS and its supporters to communicate. But the site was taken down within days of its launch, and Anonymous is taking credit.

Florida judge Linda Schoonover: The Seminole County Circuit judge is fighting a special prosecutor’s request for her Facebook records as part of a larger investigation into possible wrongdoing. Among Schoonover’s misdeeds: She reportedly sent a friend request to a woman who appeared before her in a divorce case. After the friend request was denied, Schoonover ruled against the woman and ordered her to pay $4,000 a month in alimony and legal fees.

Anyone with a selfie stick: Life just got harder for the pack of narcissists who want to post selfies on Instagram but not look like they’re posting selfies. London’s National Gallery joined a growing list of tourist attractions around the world that have banned the selfie stick, a telescoping monopod that lets you take pictures of yourself from a distance or shoot a photo over a crowd. On the plus side: They do make for adequate back-scratchers.

Maine state Sen. Michael Willette: The Republican politician representing a portion of Northern Maine faces pressure to resign after posting several offensive messages on Facebook, including one that, according to the Associated Press, suggests President Barack Obama’s family members are part of ISIS. I have no opinion on whether Willette should resign, but I really hope he’s not representing his constituents with his bigoted and offensive social media presence.

The Federal Communications Commission released its Open Internet rules today, two weeks after it approved them. Scoff if you will at the timing: Why not release the rules before the vote? (Answer: It’s complicated, but essentially because as a regulatory, not legislative, body, the FCC relies on non-public discussions among its members as well as public comments in making its rules.)

Critics of net neutrality, and even some allies, might also chafe at the length of the final document: 487 pages. That’s TL:DR for many people, but the FCC also released an accompanying document that is perhaps slightly more valuable: A three-page fact sheet separating myth from fact. It’s an important document because myth has been trumping fact way too often in this whole debate.

You can read the entire sheet here, but I’ll provide excerpts from three of the biggest, most pernicious falsehoods that have been poisoning the debate over net neutrality:

Myth: Net neutrality is a government takeover of the Internet.

This is false. The open-Internet rules apply to connectivity, not content. They prohibit Internet service providers (ISPs) from discriminating against types of content when it comes to delivering information to consumers. No “Fast Lanes,” no “pay to play”; that’s what this means. It has no effect on the content of the Internet itself. It also means that if you’re a small startup Internet company, you don’t have to compete with big players like Netflix or YouTube when it comes to getting your content to consumers.

As the FCC puts it:

“The Order doesn’t regulate Internet content, applications or services or how the Internet operates, its routing or its addressing.”

Myth: This is utility-style regulation.

The FCC says that the Order actually bars tariffs, rate regulations and unbundling requirements that are typical of utility regulation:

“No broadband provider will need to get the FCC’s approval before offering any price, product or plan.”

Myth: The FCC will set rates for broadband access.

That’s a fear that the FCC says is unfounded; it doesn’t regulate broadband rates at all.

“Broadband providers will be able to adjust retail rates without Commission approval and without having to wait even a minute.”

I’ve written before that we can and should have a debate about net neutrality. But let’s base it in facts and reason, rather than fear and myth-making.

And if you’re still worried about what the FCC will do with its Open Internet rules, read the entire order — all 487 pages of it.

WARNING: This post contains spoilers about the “Modern Family” episode “Connection Lost.” If you haven’t seen it yet, consider yourself warned. The episode is three weeks old. You should have watched it by now.

Never use “Snoopy” as a password. That is one of many important lessons imparted in the Feb. 17 episode of “Modern Family” called “Connection Lost.” The episode was groundbreaking, but not because of its storyline. The plot was the typical gross misunderstanding that gets resolved in 22 minutes. Take away the iPads, Macbooks and iPhones and you have what could be a “Three’s Company” or “Cheers” episode.

Don’t take them away, though: The Apple devices are the most important part of the show.

“Connection Lost” was a novel episode because it’s the first time a sitcom was shot entirely on Apple devices: the aforementioned iPhones, iPads and Macbooks. The characters spend the entire episode communicating almost entirely on FaceTime, and the viewer gets a glimpse into how the characters behave online. For example:

Claire Dunphy includes items like “drink wine/relax” on her To Do list, has a fake Facebook profile to keep tabs on her eldest daughter and panics at the sight of any Yahoo! headline. Plus she shoots videos of her fights with Haley.

Lily, the adopted daughter of Cameron and Mitchell, has a daily allowance of iPad screen time and throws a fit when she doesn’t get it.

Phil Dunphy, Claire’s husband, spends so much time plugged into “Halo” that he loses track of one of his children.

The plot is as follows: Claire is stuck at O’Hare Airport with just her MacBook to communicate with her family back in Los Angeles. Haley goes missing and no one knows where she is. Claire checks Haley’s Facebook page (through an imposter page, since Haley never accepted her friend request) and learns that Haley changed her relationship status to “married.” Everyone panics and further speculates that she’s also pregnant. Phil is so absorbed in his game he doesn’t know that his oldest daughter is missing, his youngest daughter has been sitting in the same room as he all morning and that his son is at Phil’s father-in-law’s house getting a mohawk. Meanwhile Claire also learns she missed her brother Mitchell’s birthday.

Nearly all the communication among these family members happens online rather than in person — unless they’re in the same room, and in the case of Phil and his daughter Alex, not even then. Despite all this connectivity, no one knows that Haley has been in her room the entire episode, instead thinking she ran away to Vegas to get married.

The technology that allowed the filming of this episode also kept the characters from searching for Haley in an obvious place. Yes, this is the stuff of sitcom gold, but it’s also a cautionary tale about spending so much of our time online that we forget about the offline world.

At one point the patriarch of the family, Jay Pritchett (played by Ed O’Neill), says everything went to hell once we stopped using the rotary phone. He’s wrong, of course. Everything just got more complicated, including how we use phones. Is it a video recorder? Is it a music player? Can you even talk to people on it?

Don’t bother bemoaning the loss of the old days. Just remember to strike a balance and remember to look up from the screen once in a while.

And for your own sake, don’t use simple passwords. Create a random character string and use that instead. I wouldn’t expect Haley to know that — she’s the dumb one — but I bet Alex, the smart sister who spends the episode fretting over a Nietzsche-themed college essay, would.

The tropes in “Connection Lost” are so familiar they could have been done 20 or 30 years ago in a different sitcom. But back then they didn’t have FaceTime, and it wouldn’t have been as cool.